Anime DVD Review: Rave Master Volume 2 – Release the Beasts

Rave Master Volume 2 – Release the Beasts is a single disc DVD release that contains four episodes of the anime series, Rave Master. When it comes to the episodes on the disc, there are no chapter marks included. If you try to skip ahead, you’ll be taken straight to the beginning of the next episode of the disc. However, I do have to give Tokyopop some credit for including the episode previews at the end of each episode. But the company definitely put this disc together as a “bare bones” set, and seemed to only put a very minimal effort into the content of the disc.

The episodes in volume two sees Musica finding Elie being held hostage, and this leads to Musica and Lance having a battle. Unfortunately, since Lance is wielding a sword of beast illusions, he is able to defeat Musica. Haru arrives in time to save Elie from death, but he has to deal with Lance’s attacks. Plue tries to intervene, but to no avail. Garein shows up to retrain Lance, and gets some assistance from Plue. Haru figures out how to defeat Lance and in the end is able to destroy Lance’s sword.

After getting through that story arc, there is one more story featuring Musica and the Silver Rhythm Gang breaking into a city bank to try to find a silver object known as the Silver Ray. Hebi, the second-in-command of the gang finds Plue in his bag and this sets off an alarm. Hebi and Plue are taken into custody, and Musica turns himself in. They manage to escape, but the police search for them. A truth is revealed about Garein, who informs the group about a Rave Stone that’s located in the north.

Just like with the first Rave Master disc, I can see that there is some potential in what would have been the original Japanese version of this series. There are still quite a few corny jokes and bad lines that appear in the dialogue for the English dub; to me, these corny jokes and bad lines make the series less enjoyable than it might have been otherwise.

There were also obvious attempts through dialogue and reused footage to cover up the fact that a couple of characters actually die during the episodes included on this set; this would have been done so the series could air on Cartoon Network and not potentially offend viewers.

The DVDs that Tokyopop released for Rave Master are now out of print, although used copies can still be found and purchased. In March of 2010, Tokyopop had made the entire series available “on demand” as DVD-Rs through CreateSpace; however, it appears this only lasted for a short time, because six months later, the CreateSpace listing was gone.

So, Rave Master fans who want to legally own any episodes of the series on DVD have to track down the three DVDs released by Tokyopop that contain the first 12 episodes.

While I wouldn’t normally recommend such a “bare bones” and incomplete release to my readers, this is a case where I have to, since this is the only way that any episodes of Rave Master can be obtained legally.

I wrote this review after watching a copy of Rave Master Volume 2 – Release the Beasts that I was given as a gift.